I'm afraid this system strikes me as being a bit overly complex -- it would seem to me that there should be something simpler and less fussy that gets you most of what you want.

It's possibly a strained analogy, but consider that the winning strategy in prisoner dilemma tournaments is just "tit-for-tat". Everyone tends to assume that more complicated strategies with more use of history will work better, but that's just not the case.

On the other hand, I don't particularly care myself -- I think in practice no one in their right mind is going to keep track on the current XP rules; and after posting this I'm just going to go back to regarding it as a mystery I'd rather not know about.

(If I were designing the system, I might go for one where only up votes were allowed, and there was no reward for voting -- what kind of democracy bribes people to vote?)

PerlMonks is clearly not democratic, regarding either the way it is run or its purpose.

It is run by a meritocracy. The votes have nothing to do with that. They have nothing to do with decision finding
and power to steer the global course, but more with decision finding for our own actions as programmers.

Went to join the gridlock to see it
Held an eclipse party
Watched a live feed
I cn"t see tge kwubosd to amswr thus
I tried to see it, but 8000 miles of rock got in the way
What eclipse?
Wanted to see it, but they wouldn't reschedule it
Read the book instead